Retro Review

The new comic Top 10 Season 2 isn’t the first sequel to Alan Moore and Gene Ha’s 12-issue super-human cop series, but it certainly seems like a far more worthy successor than 2005’s pedestrian Top 10: Beyond the Farthest Precinct. It wasn’t a bad comic book, and I was more than glad of it when it looked like there would be no more Top 10, but looking back at it now, it was a poor substitute.

Paul Di Filippo and Jerry Ordway did a fair job on continuing the story of the Top 10 precinct and its officers, but missed the mark in a few places. It is still a police procedural drama in a world populated entirely by super-humans, aliens, robots, gods and monsters, and it still has soap opera elements and in-jokes and references to other comic books. Importantly, the story is as much about the officers’ ordinary lives as about the super-crimes, and there are developments for several characters. In fact, these developments are more interesting than the main story, which feels inconsequential and is confusing. The exposition is particularly clumsy, with everything revealed in a single information dump taking two pages, and the resolutions to the three main plots don’t really satisfy: only one relies on the characters actually doing something themselves, while the other two are deus ex machina resolutions.

However, the biggest problem with Top 10: Beyond the Farthest Precinct is characterization. The original series had a great cast of characters, but this limited series distorts them to the point of caricature. The racist and often foolish Shock-Headed Peter comes across as a complete idiot; Jack Phantom comes on too strong and too butch, without any of her sassiness from the first series; when King Peacock or Peregrine talk about their beliefs, they sound like zealots. While the art is detailed, and the character depictions faithful, the characters don’t feel like themselves. Even the city feels wrong, with too many different ghettos and not enough of a sense of a city of super-humans. There’s a point in the story where it feels more like Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’s Toontown than Neopolis.

The nods and in-jokes threaten to overwhelm the story, turning it into a hunt for references to other comics. In the 2000 series, these were bonuses for long-time comic readers, but they didn’t distract from the main story, mainly appearing in establishing shots. However, in Top 10: Beyond the Farthest Precinct, the joke is taken too far, and it feels like every other page has some wink at the readers, with some of the borrowed characters taking on roles in the story. The style of art that is used for many of these cameo characters is also distracting, as it emphasizes their difference to the rest of the world: Tintin drawn in Herge’s style looks completely out of place beside three of the DC characters to carry the Manhunter name drawn in traditional mainstream style. 

It’s possible that Top 10: Beyond the Farthest Precinct is going to be ignored by the current creative team: Top 10 Season 2 is set after the original series but before Beyond, so its continuity doesn’t have to be taken into account. This might not be a bad thing, as it gives one of the creators a chance to say more about the characters he created, without having to accommodate out-of-character behavior and major changes.

Top 10: Beyond the Farthest Precinct #1-5, from America’s Best Comics. Available as a trade paperback. D for characterization, C for plot, B for art, D for crossing the line from occasional in-jokes to over-used comedy cameos. C overall. Not a bad comic, but not a worthy successor to the original. Get it if you’re a Jerry Ordway fan, or an America’s Best Comics completist, otherwise, I wouldn’t bother.

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